It's more complicated than this. And because it's so complicated, people look at ways to make participation more efficient. Party affiliation happens to be the most common way people participate, because it's efficient. But it is inherently inaccurate, you don't actually know the person you're really voting for with this method, and you don't know their position on specific issues, and you don't even know non-political things about them.

We also aren't even a majoritarian democracy, often the winner has only a plurality of votes. Most voter eligible citizens don't vote (in the U.S. where it's not compulsory). We don't have range or preference voting, or run offs. All of these have consequences in the outcome.

I don't see many brawls in politics. That's maybe at dinner parties, on TV, and in forums. City council meetings are pretty boring and docile. D.C. has lots of nice friendly people (haha), which maybe superficial, but they have more manners than brawls day to day.

Possibly the one thing going on right now that left, right, hard left, hard right, center, and maybe even non-participants can agree on is a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics. Entirely out. Publicly funded elections, do the hard work yourself, with volunteers, not moneyed special interests paying for your ads and so on. It would take an amendment because money is considered speech by SCOTUS, corporations have speech rights, so they can pretty much spend whatever they want on any message for any candidate. And those interests throw red meat to activate the brawls you see. They love that. It raises money. Activates people to vote who'd otherwise stay at home.